Style Invitational Week 1478: It's a small, small word
This week, write a poem using the 1,000 most common words. Plus winning neologisms.
Illustration by Bob Staake for The Post
—If you’re not yet getting this newsletter by email (or if you got dropped because you didn’t expressly opt in since we moved over to Substack): By all means …
The bars are all filled — it’s a very good sign;
The beer’s going fast and they're serving up wine.
We’re FINALLY out! There’s widescreen TV!
The big game is starting: It’s — yes! — World War Three!
This week’s contest, Week 1478: Write a humorous poem using only the 1,000 most common words*, as in Bob Staake’s own poem above. *That’s according to Randall Munroe, creator of the famed Up Goer Five — a simple-word name for the Saturn-V rocket — and a nifty tool called Simple Writer: You just type something into the box and it’ll tell you if your words are on the list. Deadline for Week 1478: Monday night, March 14.
And we once again add to the Loser Lexicon with dozens of neologisms, this time from our recurring Hyphen the Terrible contest, in which the Losers combed through the paper for hyphenated terms, then combined different halves into a new word. One runner-up, by Ann Martin: Misinforma-tion + Beetho-ven: MISINFORMA-VEN: Someone who’s done his own research.
Especially if you’re thinking of entering the common-word contest, see some more details in my supplementary column, The Style Conversational. Not to mention a giant quilt made out of Loser T-shirts.
LINKS TO …
This week's Invitational column, Week 1478, and results of Week 1474
The same column for non-subscribers (but do sign up — there are always great promotions going on!)
No-paywall entry form for Week 1478
This week’s Style Conversational column
Still running -- Deadline Monday night, March 7: Write funny “review” for one or more of seven everyday products (e.g., shoehorn, whistle, white sandwich bread) and/or one oddball one (“lion’s mane” headband for a cat). This time it’s on the Walmart website rather than Our Usual Portal, but same idea. See Week 1477 here; see the no-paywall entry form here.
More ways to enjoy The Style Invitational and be part of the Loser Community:
Join the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook and the Devs will anagram your name every which way.
Also on Facebook, the Style Invitational Ink of the Day page presents one classic entry as a colorful graphic that's easy to share. "Like" the page to get it regularly on your news feed, or to scroll through the archives. bit.ly/inkofday.
And we're now on Season 2 of the You're Invited podcast, half-hour episodes with host Mike Gips and various Invite luminaries. Catch all 18 episodes at bit.ly/invite-podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
— Pat Myers, Empress of The Style Invitational, pat.myers@washpost.com (or just reply to this email)
*That's Loser with a capital L; named for the runner-up prizes emblazoned "LOSER," the community of regular Style Invitational entrants now proudly calls itself the Losers. If you enter the Invite, you're a Genuine Loser. But not (necessarily) a loser.